I've come to know the wishlist of my father [open]

[neveragain]

[OOC: SO SORRY FOR ALL THE CURSING AND ASSHOLENESS IN THIS.]In all his fucking years alive, Adam never fucking expected that he'd be in Chicago for as long as he has been so far. It's not like this is the Best Place to be with all the shit that goes down here, all the fuckin' disasters that get this city talked about from one city to the next, all

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[neveragain]

Adam would say that he tries to make these first impressions, but he really doesn't at all, people. This is just his fucking life. A bunch of people who can't appreciate his comments and take to chasing him in circles, crying, or slapping him in the face.

This doesn't count all the punching, shooting, swordplay, chopping, tackling, and more that generally comes into play when he meets someone. It's not necessarily always the person he's meeting that's involved in that shit, but it just seems to be how it works out.

No clue why either. Seriously, people. The fuck is up with this shit?

"Somethin' cracked. Could have been a hip, could have been a leg. Jesus only knows. Guess they might have survived the Sears Tower," Adam says with something of a shrug. WELP too late now. He thought the height and all the moving they'd have to do would give them some collective heart attack.

So sue him for being a good fucking Samaritan here. Jesus.

People act like it's the biggest fucking crime to speak the truth.

Adam raises an eyebrow when suddenly this kid is stepping behind him somewhat cause some pompous ass is sticking his nose out the front door. He looks over at whoever the hell it is and shrugs their way as if to say the fuck are you looking at?

It's not until they leave again that he rolls his eyes. "The fuck are you doing?" He asks more out of curiosity than anything else. Adam takes a long drag of the cigarette. "Hiding from jackasses in fuckin' sweater vests?"

[servenogods]

"Why say something, though? You don't really care if any of them are gonna need hip replacements. Were you just bored?" Alek says with a shrug of his own. And he does ask out of curiosity more than anything else, also. He doesn't get people a lot of the time, and Adam displays behavior that's more puzzling than most of the people he's ever met.

Besides, Alek isn't one to keep something to himself if he's curious about it.

He asks whether people will answer him or not.

He asks whether people will stand to talk to him or not.

Alek doesn't release a breath until the 'pompous ass' gives Adam a scrutinizing look and steps back into the Tower. Alek pokes his head out to see if he's gone back inside. "He could get me kicked out of school," is what he answers with, and a shrug to boot.

And while Alek may not like school, his brothers would give him hell if he got kicked out of it. He wouldn't look forward to that at all, really. Alek steps back out to face Adam, and he's about to ask for another cigarette since he's wasted the only one he had.

There's--his gaze drops immediately to Adam's hand, to the ring on Adam's hand, identical to the one he has, and his face immediately hardens. There shouldn't be any possible way anyone else could have a ring like it, unless--but no.

He looks back up at him, as if he's doing so for the first time.

"Who the fuck are you?"

[neveragain]

Adam shrugs at the question. The answer is that he is an asshole, and he's an asshole all the time. There might be some deeper answer, but that's just the immediate thought that comes to mind. He pisses people off. Maybe he just got used to it living with Lucien all that fucking time.

"Wanted to piss people off I guess," he says with a shrug as he blows out smoke from the cigarette. "Nah, I was just being honest with them. Why the fuck bother holding back what you're thinking about?"

That's not exactly true either.

"And I'm an asshole."

Well, that's true. He's an asshole that doesn't know how or care to keep his mouth shut. Whatever that might mean too, whether people leave or they stay or they never want to talk to him again.

It's what he is after all looks like a pompous, condescending ass with that look like everyone's underneath him or some shit. Adam's real familiar with people who look like that. "Never paid much fuckin' attention to school," he says with a small smirk.

He should have, but he didn't. His mom wanted him to, but he didn't. He was a fucking werewolf. There was a powerful as shit dad of his so he didn't need any fucking school. Now look at him. Adam rolls his eyes thinking of himself, thinking of who he used to be.

Yeah, great fucking decisions by Adam for 10,000, Trebek.

Adam is not paying attention to Alek's hands at all, and it's only when he sees Alek's gaze drops to his hand that Adam remembers the ring that's there. He stares at Alek... before his gaze drops too and well fuck. What are his fucking odds?

He stares at him for a long moment, doesn't recognize him so he must be the youngest. Jesus.

Jesusfuck.

"Well, hey little brother." Smarmy smirk that fades as quick as it comes, it's been years and years since he saw any of his family, any of his brothers or his mother who he found out died.

The smirk falls, and his face is unreadable, but there's this feeling being punched in the chest. "Guess they didn't tell you about me. Fuckin' back sheep of the family so makes some sense, sure as fuck wouldn't have expected me to come back and complicate shit."

[servenogods]

"Hey, I'm not thrilled about it myself, as one can see, but the way I see it, I got less than a fucking year before I'm through with it, never have to see any of the assholes ever again in my life," Alek says with a shrug, as if it's that simple, as if he might as well finish it, as if that's the only reason.

There's always a deeper one. Reason, that is, but the first thoughts that always come to mind are the lies, are the ones that are easy to tell, are the ones that protect from what he really means, and Alek wouldn't really say what he means. He doesn't, not most of the time.

It seems weak, vulnerable to say that he was once a momma's boy, and he once made a promise to her before she died, and that he made it back when promises ever meant anything. He was very close to her, and she loved all of her sons equally. She would say they were each like a finger from her hand, an extension of her own limbs, and if you cut off any one finger, it would hurt the same.

Not one more than the other, but Alek was close to her in a different sort of way.

Even knowing she kept her secrets.

It's why it comes like a punch to the gut, and Alek stares at him, sees some resemblance there he doesn't want to, and he almost flinches at the little brother. This is a stranger, and he's wearing a ring that comes from his mother, and Alek does not know why. He would know, except he would've made a similar decision to Adam if he had, and it was exactly what his mother was trying to spare him of.

Alek locks his jaw, shaking his head as the answer comes, as if by refusing to accept it, it might become an untruth.

"They wouldn't keep something like that from me," he says, and even as the words leave him, the doubt in his face is saying something else entirely. Alek takes a step back, as if regrouping, sliding a hand into the back of his hair, fingers curling into the short strands at the nape.

It's the exact same fucking ring, the onyx black stone carved elegantly into the frame. It's what the five of them have always shared, different though they may all be. Logan. Connor. Adrien. Ethan. Alek. There was five of them. Five.

Family ring.

He was never to lose it.

"Come back? Come back and complicate what?"

[neveragain]

"Yea, no, you should... go through the rest of school and shit, because if you don't and you flunk out like me you get fuckin' pissed. Cause you went through all those fucking years as a tot and it was all for nothing," Adam says, rolling his eyes. "Might as well fuckin' finish."

He has no idea that Alek pretty much thought the same thing word for word, but seriously, he regretted fucking leaving in the first place and that was part of it, not graduating high school.

There was a lot of shit that he put his mother, their mother through that he'd take back if he could at this point, but it's far too late for that. He was young, angry, impulsive, an asshole even then though that's only developed more over time. Adam made his decision, discovered for himself how much of a psychotic shithead, his dad was.

It was a little too late at that point.

He wanted to come back, but he understood even at the young age that he was that he couldn't, that doing so meant risking the rest of his brothers being discovered. Adam's hardly any noble type person, but he protects what he cares about.

That much can be said about him, it's not like he expected his existence to be completely fucking kept from Alek, but it makes sense. Who wouldn't be curious about the brother they never knew? The father that they share fucking genes with?

For his own protection or some shit like that is how she'd explain it, how they'd explain it.

Adam sees the reasoning behind it, but he doesn't think it makes it right either, because Oops, hello fucking world, he's here and he's not planning on staying, can't afford it but fuck. Fuck if it doesn't seem like he owes him some explanation or another.

Shit, he cut ties a long time ago and never thought they'd be built back up like this, all cause he was on the run from their daddy.

"Not even to protect you," Adam says as he looks at him, wincing at the sight and rolling his eyes as he looks forward again. This is not why he's fucking in Chicago. He was chasing some leads, in and out again.

Why is NOTHING fucking simple anymore? He asks this like it's ever been simple with him. Shit like that is shit he doesn't acknowledge.

"Complicate your life with the fucking truth." He closes his eyes wondering if she thought about him before he died or if he was as cut off as he tried to be, forgotten, shoved away. Adam hopes he fucking was. She didn't need to be thinking about him on her deathbed. "Endanger your life with the truth. Because y'know the truth doesn't fucking count if you never talk about it."

Sarcasm. He's utilizing it well to mask that persistent feeling in his chest. "It's Adam by the way. Your oldest fuckin' brother."

[servenogods]

The bottom drops from him quickly.

Talks about finishing high school and ladies needing hip replacements quickly fly out the window, past the buzzing in his ears and the drumming inside his chest that's threatening to cave in on him. He doesn't recognize Adam. Why would he? Alek was barely learning to walk when Adam left. He was still fed in baby bottles. There's nothing to remember.

He has no idea about anyone's reasons or the why, he just knows he's been lied to and Adam is breaking the truth like he might as well be talking about the weather.

The bastard rolls his eyes like it might as well be some pathetic satire they're living in.

And hell, maybe he's right.

"I don't need to be protected, from your or from anybody," Alek says, biting back the urge to snarl, because even as he says those words, believes them to an extent, he knows they're not true for his brothers. He's the younger one. The one that flies off the handle. The one that never listens to reason.

The one that's much to quick to use his fists before he thinks.

"You're seriously going to be all cavalier about this? Good to know. The fuck do you want me to do about that?"

How can it be so nonchalant for him?

He's saying they're brothers, and he might as well be talking about wanting to have a beer. Alek stares at him as if he can't really believe that they are having this conversation, and he can't. "My oldest brother is Logan," he says through gritted teeth, jaw locking before he takes another step back. "I don't know who the fuck you are, but they wouldn't--"

His hands are already balling into tight fists, short, bitten nails digging into the center of his palm until he almost draws blood.

His older brothers always have this talent of making him feel so stupid. They're not even here, and he feels stupid, by being kept in the dark, by having to be protected, by always having everyone else think they know what's best and never really caring to ask what he thinks.

Because he's wrong.

He's always wrong.

Alek shakes his head, and the expression on his face is caught between wanting to laugh hysterically about something that isn't funny at all and wanting to tear something apart. "I'd ask what the truth is but I don't trust you or anybody to actually tell me what that is. So I'm gonna walk away now, and we can pretend this never fucking happened."

[neveragain]

Alek was very small when Adam last saw him, and there is no way for him to know about it, to know about Adam unless someone told him. They didn't tell him about it, and here he is! It's not like Adam ever fucking expected to be back here, but in order to exact revenge on ole Poppa himself, it's necessary to go through channels in Chicago where every fucking thing happens.

Of course, he never thought he'd needed to go to Chicago, never thought that Katherine would die at least not before they were having their revenge, never thought a lot of fucking things.

But that's life for ya. Just like he left home at the age of eighteen thinking he'd go meet dad and everything would be peachy damn keen, never thinking that it'd be the biggest fucking hellhole anyone could walk into, a monster that there was no escape from... until Katherine.

Granted, he could have left earlier but never for good without being hunted down. Now he's being hunted down for more than just fucking leaving, but it's worth it, but it's necessary. And he'll risk just damn near everything to make fucking certain Lucien gets what's coming to him, one way or another. Katherine's not dying in vain.

No matter what that costs along the way, but he honestly fucking hadn't thought about his brothers. It was hard to think about them beyond that well of rage.

"Don't fuckin' look at me. I wasn't here protecting you or shit like that," Adam says, and he doesn't say it with anger, no. It's just a statement with his hands held up on either side of him like it's no big thing.

But that, that makes him look sideways at Alek. Again, it's not really in anger either. Just that persistent sarcasm.

"What the fuck do you want? You want me to sit you down, talk to you, start fucking crying, before we have some big melodramatic reunion, slow motion hug bullshit?" Adam looks at him plainly. "I don't want you to do anything with it, kid. I'm not here to fuck up your life."

It means more than he lets on, but that's what happens after so many years spent with Lucien who learns to figure out what means shit and what doesn't mean shit to you. And he takes what means something and he destroys it. Not that Alek knows that, and Adam knows he doesn't but he's not going to click out of that mentality, not for anything, can't fuckin' afford to.

"Wouldn't they?" It's said almost with bitterness but not quite. Logan is the oldest after Adam, and Logan is much different than Adam, much more levelheaded, responsible, and he watched Adam go, say he'd find their father, and then never come back.

Adam's not fucking surprised that Logan would shut it down with the littlest of them, not that it makes it right, not that it makes it okay, but he's been gone 15 years and he still knows.

Still somehow fucking knows. But there's more than that, more reason than that to lie to the kid, there are so many truths his brothers would be 100% better off not knowing.

"Yeah, well, so far, I'm the only one of your brothers who hasn't fucking lied to you." It's said very matter of factly even if it's not how he feels. There's something shoved through him painfully at the expression on Alek face, and he doesn't register any of that on his face, no. "Okay, works for me. I'll be fucking gone in two fucking days so we can both forget this shit ever happened."

It's not like he ever did forget. It's why he kept in enough contact to find out about their mother, to tell them 'don't go here' or 'not safe'.

[servenogods]

There are a lot of things that are mostly a fog in Alek's mind.

Maybe it he tried really hard to look back he'd remember something, remember there were six where he'd always thought there were five, remember his mother sitting on the rocking chair, looking out the window, as if always waiting for something that would never come, and Alek never did understood what it was.

Sometimes he wondered if she was just waiting for time.

Either way, it was something that never came, and sometimes she was so unbearably sad Alek couldn't stand it. Life did something to her, broke her in a way she never quite recovered from, and he was too young to understand. He was too young to get that loving someone so much doesn't fix them, and he thought at the time it would.

If he just loved her hard enough, she would be okay, but she wasn't.

All she left were these holes were answers are supposed to be, and a hollow grief he's never really allowed himself to fully feel.

"I didn't think you were. Five minutes and I already know you don't give a shit about anything, least of all your family if you were never around and they didn't tell me about you. Trust me, I got the memo, and I'm not one for warm, fuzzy fucking feelings, either," Alek says, jaw clenching stubbornly only the way someone so young can manage.

"I don't want anything from anyone, and I sure as hell don't need it. Getting the truth every now and then would be nice, but no, I sure as hell don't need a Lifetime segment with you anytime soon," Alek says, temper flaring the more Adam shows he doesn't care, and it shouldn't matter to Alek, Alek doesn't know him.

It doesn't really matter.

Wouldn't they?

Alek doesn't have a reply for that.

"You think because we share a stupid ring and some gene pool we're actually brothers?" Alek asks with a hollow, bitter laugh and it's that which gets to him. It's the rings that come from his mother, the rings she said to guard their lives with, to never take off, and Adam was clearly listening. "For someone that doesn't seem to give a shit, you sure as hell never took off the damn ring, did you? Yeah. I thought so."

He doesn't need anybody, that's always been true, and if he does have a brother that doesn't give a fuck, then so what.

It shouldn't matter.

I'll be fucking gone in two fucking days so we can both forget this shit ever happened.

"Yeah? Well, good riddance, asshole," Alek bites out, closing the zipper of his jacket up to his chest and turning around, walking off without looking back. He'll get in trouble--again--for skipping out on a field trip day and he couldn't care less.

He has no intentions of going back in there and pretending he's fine, pretending he doesn't want to punch something in the face.

It's easier to be angry than it is to be honest.

That's always been true, and with Alek, it always will be.